The Dale Jr. Download - NASCAR's Biggest Bada** - DJD Classics w/ Ricky Rudd

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

Nobody in NASCAR has quite the reputation for being a true bada** like Ricky Rudd. One of the toughest drivers in the sport's storied history, hear Ricky recount his harrowing crash during the 1984 Busch Clash race, and why he chose to race with his eyelids taped open during the Daytona 500 just days later. Ricky also shares why he gave Rusty Wallace his "Rubberhead" nickname, and how he settled his long-standing feud with Dale Earnhardt. Learn how this self-described adrenaline junky revived his career and how he views his legacy today. Fans of all eras will be sure to enjoy this flashback to our interview with Ricky, which originally aired on October 29, 2019.  Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The following is a production of Dirty Bum Media. Rewind a DJD classic. Enjoy. Oh, damn, there he is. All year we have had people asking for this moment right here is to have you on our show. You have been, no, seriously, widely requested. Yeah, a lot of fans on social media

give us a lot of opinions about who we should have on our show and you're in that conversation more often than anyone else. Well, that's a big honor, you know. The fans, fans still remember you. They do. They do. And a lot of fans remember you by the name, The Rooster, right? And I remember hearing that, but I don't know how you got that nickname.

Do you even know how you got that nickname? Well, sort of, and a roundabout way. We had a crew chief, Richard Broome years ago. As a matter of fact, he worked at Hendricks for many years, and we were lucky, fortunate enough when I had my own race team that Richard came on and was crew chief a while. And Richard, he was just a character. He was the, I don't know how he came up on the subject,

But he said, anybody ever told you you're like a rooster, a banam rooster? I said, what the heck? What are you talking about? He says, man, because I get you, if I can work and get you fired up on that staring well, he says, you'll attack anything. You know, you're still a little guy, but you'll go after anything. And that's kind of how it got started. And that's one of those deals.

I mean, it could be named a lot worse, so I guess it's not too much. Oh, yeah. You don't mind it. No, it doesn't bother me. No, it's kind of neat. Do people still call you that, like at first reference? Yeah, I mean, I'll see people. I haven't seen, or they haven't seen me for years,

and the first thing they'll say is, hey, there's the rooster. You know, I don't think, oh, okay. So you were born Richard Lee Rudd. How did you get Ricky? I'm not really sure where that came from, just early on. It was kind of funny because once I started racing and learning about all the different drivers, and I guess I was named after him, or I think I was named after a great grandfather, but Richard Lee, and it's Richard Lee Petty.

Right. So it's kind of odd that ended up with that name, a racing name, when I was born, I guess. Yeah. So you said it, man, you know, you'll run into people, haven't seen you in years. I hadn't seen you in forever. So what have you been doing? Man, I wish I could tell you all these great, exciting things, but kind of doing exactly what I want to do now, you know, and not on a schedule. And that's, I know as far as booking things in advance, and I'm probably getting labeled hard to get along with, but it's nothing personal. I just, I don't want to be on a schedule anymore. You know, I live that schedule forever.

I just, I don't want to do a schedule anymore. So if somebody calls up this morning and says, I need you in California to go do something. And I look around and Linda's sitting around and she didn't have anything to do and she goes with me, well, we'll hop on an airplane and go out in California. And that's kind of how we live life now. We don't really live on a schedule. We just sort of live day to day and just sort of, you know, all the years that you didn't have control of your schedule, now we're taking advantage of having control of it.

Yeah. And you've been doing that for over 10 years now. Yeah, yes. It's added up. You look back at it. You say, man, where do those 10 years go? But it's neat. I mean, it takes a while to sort of get racing out of your blood.

You never get totally out of your blood. And you'll never do anything the rest of your life that compares adrenaline-wise to what you did in a race car. And I guess I figured out, finally after I retired, I'm an adrenaline junkie. And nothing fulfills that like driving a race car. What are some of your hobbies, though? Well, it changes. It tends to change because I tend to get bored with things.

So for a long time I was riding mountain bikes, pretty aggressively. Really? Yeah, I was doing that for a long time. I was riding about four or five days a week. No kidding. And decided I want to be a mountain bike racer maybe at one time and ran my first mountain bike race and I said, uh-uh, that's not necessarily such a good idea.

That's more training. These guys are very serious about doing that. And this was just on a local level. It was just more than what you anticipated? Well, it was going to be a lot of work. You know, I was taking something that I had fun at. And I'll do that. I mean, that's just a character flaw.

I'll take something that's usually pretty simple that most people have fun at. And I'll turn it into something complicated. and make it more than it is. And I was working out, training, eating right and stuff. And I just said, you know, I went mountain biking just to get away and have fun. Now I'm right back just like driving a race car again. I've taken something that was fun and made it more complex. So now I haven't been mountain biking when I do.

It's just, you know, a pleasure ride. And I can't ride the miles like I used to. Did you ever ride a road? No, I liked road to ride on the road, but I'm scared of that. You know, it just scares me having my back to traffic. And guys do it all the time. I understand now it's kind of neat because, you go to the racetrack.

Now, I understand that most of the crew guys have their bikes. And whenever they have days off, or afternoon off from probably 5 o'clock on, they hop on their bikes. They could do a ride. That's right. And they just have a blast. I think it's great. I think it's that.

Jimmy got me, Jimmy Johnson got me into it. And I rode 2,400 miles in 2017. Yeah, is that right? And I've fallen off quite a bit. I don't ride as much as all. But I miss it, but I feel the same way. Like, I go, I bounce between being nervous about riding because I don't like riding alone.

Yeah. Versus, you know, if there's a big group. then you're kind of intimidated by the speed of those guys and not doing it enough. Yeah, you got to do it. I mean, you got to live it, really. You do, you do. You'll fall off. Like, I would, I, when I was riding 2,400 miles in 2015, I'd worked my way up from 15-mile-an-hour average over 20 miles to 19.

I was real happy with that. And then I quit riding for about three months, and I was back down to 16.5-mile an hour. So, I mean, you got to keep doing it to stay strong enough. Yeah, you got me beat. I was doing my two years I was riding hard. I did 5,000 miles. in the woods. That's a lot.

That's a lot. The woods is harder because you're going a little slower and you're climbing a lot. Yeah. It's more work on your legs. The only thing I know is when a guy shows up, it's never in a mountain bike, but he's a road bike guy. You know good and well that cardio-wise, you can't keep up with a road guy. But then you sort of ride the trails and then you sort of learn how to out-maneuver him. Exactly.

The finesse. Well, if you were looking for adrenaline to, you know, something, a hobby to replace that adrenaline, did that give it to you? And if not, have you still been seeking that to try to fix that adrenaline rush? Well, the older I'm getting at, that's finally starting to calm down. I'm 63 years old now, so it's not a big deal as like it was. I keep a go-cart. I've got a stall up at GoPro Motorplex.

I keep a couple of go-carts, yeah. And I ran, I raced two seasons up there. What? See, now we're getting. We knew he had to be doing some racing, right? Yeah, so I got a garage full of the latest, well, I say latest grades. I haven't opened a garage door in a year and a half, so I think it's still there. And, but, you know, and I'll do that a while, and I got bored of that, and I'm piddled with airplanes.

I like to fly airplanes. I'm a pilot's license in the 80s. Yeah. So, I, so anyway, my son came along, and he's got in there resting and flying. So we went and bought a little small airplane after 10 years of not having an airplane. We bought just some Linda calls at our put-putt airplane. So it's just nothing fancy, you know, and it's what it's for. I put around.

Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. All right, man. Well, let's get back, dive into your career a little bit. I know you started out as a go-car racer and racing in motocross, right? Yeah. All right.

How did that get going? What was the catalyst? What was the one thing that got you interested in racing? I'd have to say there was five kids in our family, first of all. Really? And, yeah, I was a lot of kids. And I was next to the youngest. And my dad was a body shop guy.

He was a body man. He could build stuff. And he built a replica small car for all the kids in the family. not me. I was four or five years old, four or five years old. So it really wasn't built for me. It was built for my older brothers and sisters. And it wasn't a fast one. It was just a miniature car. Had headlights and all kind of stuff. But they kind of lost interest in it. And then, you know, I came along four or five years old and I'd wear my dad out. Hey, let's go out and run a go car. Let's go run it. And I just wear him out. And so I was myself and I think my, I'm trying to think my older brother,

he liked to run it some. But we would do that almost all the weekends. We just, He had, he'd spend time. We'd go out and ride it. We lived in a residential neighborhood in a cul-de-sac. It wasn't very big, but we'd go out there and we'd probably run a hundred laps around that little cul-de-sac. And that was fun. And then it wasn't really fast enough.

And then that's kind of how it started. It went from there. That was fun, but I want to do something faster. And that's kind of how it just kind of snowballed from there. Yeah. And so you got into go-car racing and motocross and what was the, what would connect that to racing stock cars? in a stock car in 1975 at Rockingham, but what was the bridge?

Well, that's a good question. I really don't know. It just sort of happened. You know, it's not like I'm not smart enough to make a long-term plan. It just sort of unfolded. And the go-cart racing was great. It advanced to the point we're going all over the United States, eastern half the United States running all the national races

and found out that I could do pretty good in that. You know, I won a lot of races doing that. But these were not the kind of go-cart tracks that you see around. downtown. It's like Road Atlanta, Watkins Gwynn, VIR. I was nine, ten years old, driving a hundred mile an hour at VIR. Laying down. Laying down on your back. Wow. Did you go to Duttona? Daytona was just starting when I went car racing. So we did that. And, man, I loved the speed. I found out of a speed junkie. You went to Daytona? On a go car? No, they did run go-carts,

but the year I sort of retired, moved on out of the go-cart racing. That was the first year they went there. I did race at Charlotte, Rockingham. Right. They ran Charlotte, Rockingham. Yeah. They eventually got to Daga. Yeah. Those things, I mean, they're very fast. People don't realize, you know.

How was that running around Charlemory Speedway in a hundred mile an hour or 120 mile an hour on a go cart laying down flat? You know, you didn't have anything to compare it to. It was fun. I mean, it was fun as heck, you know, just being a kid, you know, and laying on your back. I mean, literally, you would, the cart would bump the ground every now and then. That way you had to, if you didn't bump the ground, you weren't low enough. So you'd just kind of scrape the ground a little bit. And, but running 100-some mile an hour, I mean, at that young age, it was just,

unbelievable because the area that I grew up in, it wasn't really so much a race town as it was, if you went farther north of Richmond, that was a big stock car country. I grew up. What town? What town? I grew up in the Chesapeake, Virginia Beach area in Norfolk. So I grew up there, but, you know, you asked what happened after I had to get the motorcycles with a go-kart races were about every three weeks. Well, I was getting bored in between and just ended up with a little dirt bike just playing around. And then I found out I could do okay on it because I was riding with guys that were racing local.

And I got so I could go pretty good. I wouldn't say I could beat up on them, but I could ride with them. And then I went from there to a full-fledged, full-fledged dirt bike motocross. And I mean, I wasn't pro-level. It was more. I could compete pretty darn good on local stuff.

But now and then the big boys would show up into town, the national guys. And I could run with them for about 10 minutes. And I give out because our races were very short. There's a long. But I liked it. But, you know, still was, the car thing just sort of stumbled on to that.

So how did you get in touch with Bill Champion that you ended up driving for? Bill Champion was the first stock car that I ever drove. He had it. And I was basically racing motorcycles, go-carts, 16. I raced them up until I was about 16, 17, right in that area. And then my brother was a volunteer helper. My brother's a couple years older than me. And he was a great mechanic.

I'm not. I was opposite. I could take stuff apart. Didn't know how to get it back together. But he was building motors and stuff when he was in high school. So it's him and his best friend that lived in our neighborhood, a guy named Cliff Champion. He was Cliff.

Cliff and my brother were best friends in school. And then Cliff's second cousin was Bill Champion. But they volunteer helped Bill Champion work on his race car. So Bill was getting up in age, and he kept mummling, hey, I'm about ready over this stuff. I'm too old to drive this thing anymore. and then my brother and his best friend Cliff said, hey, you ought to get Ricky's brother a try.

He's really good at, you know, racing and stuff. He said, how much car experience he's got. He said, we've never driven a race car. But he's good on a motorcycle and he's good on a go-cart. You need to give him a try. And he did. Bill gave us, you know, basically gave us a try. You ran a cup race like that.

Yeah, I literally went. Were you not scared to death? I was petrified because before that, What happened is, it didn't happen exactly like that. What happened is Bill had a cup car that at that time, they would sell the cup cars after two or three years, and they'd end up in the late model, which is the Bush Series nationwide series today.

That's where the cars came from. They were sort of hammy-down cup cars. So we bought his hand-me-down cup car and took it to Daytona. Now, this is again never, the only racetrack I got on was they took me over to Langley Field. We ran 15 laps in a cup car around a little bull ring just to see how to start it, and how to work the switches. And so that's where we were.

went from there, went to the Daytona race to run in the race before the 500. The sports and race. Yeah. And we didn't run quick enough. It was not a hundred car. It was like 75 cars and I was first alternate qualifying, which is the best thing that happened because I would have killed myself for sure if I'd have made it. So I got, that was my practice time.

So the next week is rocking him. When you went out on the racetrack at Daytona in that car and pulled out there, where you just like, yeah, I had to feel like the most incredible feeling ever. Like going to the moon? Like, I'm trying to remember, like, the one I pulled out when I went to, I had a little bit of stock car experience. And so when I got there, I kind of had, I wasn't so unfamiliar, but the visual of pulling into Daytona for the first time ever is incredible. I can't imagine going there and knowing, like, I got to drive a car around this thing. Yeah, I mean, it was scary.

Yeah, I was probably no scared I've ever been in my life. I mean, because I get out there and it was, and just getting in and getting buckled up and getting out there knowing we're going to run. At that time, I think they'd run 180 mile an hour. Yeah. And, you know, again, I've never, only time I've been in the car, I had 10 laps the week before to shake a car down. So I'm out there and I'm running and I'm like, this thing is, I can't, it had a 427 motor in it, you know, a big block fast thing. But they had restrictor plates on it. But it would get up and go.

And I remember thinking, this thing is fast, but it drives like a dump truck. I mean, it reminds me because I was used to tossing go carts flipping them around. Slow. Yeah. And it was just like I'm driving a school bus. Yeah. And I'm running way, way too fast to be going to drive this. driving a school bus.

Yeah. If you're driving a school bus. And anyway, I was scared as I've ever been in my life. And I stayed scared for a while, you know, because I didn't have any experience. Like kids a day. But that's a good point. How long did it take to get over the fear of driving these cars? Because you never got the learning curve.

You never got the experience. About 32 years. Gotcha. But it did give you adrenaline. If you were looking at that. Oh, yeah. No, that was an adrenaline. I overdosed on adrenaline that day.

Yeah. for a while. But, you know, it was some funny story. I could go on. But the next week I did okay, I didn't make that race. But champ says, hey, you did okay. How did you like to go to Rockingham, North Carolina, drive the cup car?

Well, sure. Yeah, well, let's just try it. You know, I didn't tell them. I was still scared of that Daytona experience. Yeah. Rockingham wasn't as scary. But, again, I roll in there for my first cup race. And I'm trying to remember how to unfold it.

But I remember getting on the racetrack and running. And I made the race qualified, qualified like midpack. and I finished 10th or 11th. Yep, you finish. And what people don't really, I mean, that looks good on the record. Yeah. But you probably don't see it.

I was 30 laps down over on a far bar. I was 30, 30 laps down. And Donnie Allison had lacked me, I don't know how many times he went by me that day. And I was a great shape I thought from motorcross racing and cart racing. And I was running, it was 500 laps. I was running on my tongue hanging out, even as slow as I was going. I mean, I was, it was hard.

And Donnie passes me for about, I don't know, the 30th time. And as he's going by, I'm thinking, I'm like up on that wheel. And he's driving by him, he's waving. Because I always gave him, he just wave. I said, how the world can he be driving that fast and just driving with one hand? I've got two hands and everything I can do to keep this thing going straight. So it was interesting for sure. How hot was the cockpit of those cars back then compared to you raced up into 2007?

Like, what was the interior experience like for a driver back in the 70s? You know, I was 17 or 18. I mean, it was hot, but I used to, I mean, we used to go to motorcycle races. And back then we wore leather gear before they had all the stuff they've got now. We wore leather pants. We didn't wear full top, you know, leather on top, but we had a jersey and leather pants. And I remember racing motorcycles where it was just unbelievably hot. So the cars, to me, the heat didn't really, never really bothered me.

But they, you know, I guess looking back, they were, they were very hot. But under another, I think the cars today maybe even are hotter. Yeah. because the cars then were way up off the ground. So a lot of air flowed under the car. And exhaust systems weren't, you know, the exhaust systems, air cooled the exhausts, it didn't radiate to the floorboard. So I don't remember the heat coming until, you know,

to the car started getting slicker and getting on the ground. When they started getting on the ground, then I remember them getting hot. So in 1977, you won Rook of the Year. Yep. Right? I mean, the first race, 1975, 19777, you won Rook of the Year. Your crew chief was Will Kronkite.

Yeah, which was your dad's one of his first crewcheice. Yeah, Dad and Will got together in 78. Yeah. And then you got a big break to drive. Well, you run for your dad for a little bit. So what was, I guess, how was that experience for you to drive family-owned car? Well, what we did, we actually, we bought a car from your grandfather, Robert G. That was my first real car that we had.

It was our own. So my dad bought the car from Robert G. And it was a great car. I mean, in fact, the car had finished Atlanta. The last race of the year was Atlanta the previous year. And this was going back 75, 76. But anyway, the car was driven by Bobby Isaac at Atlanta. And we bought it right off the racetrack.

Basically, it went back to Harrisburg. And they pulled the – Ray Fox Jr. pulled the motor out. That was his motor. And then we took delivery of the car. It was a good car. So we had something really good to start with. We just didn't know what we were doing on how to work on it. But we learned as we went.

But that's the car we won rookie the year with. Really? Yeah. But how did your father become all of a sudden a team? I mean, where did this start? I mean, because I don't know a whole lot about your father. And, you know, if you started go-kart racing at the early age, I mean, did he pass that down to you? And then how did this sort of pivot to being owning a cup car that you just bought from Robert G?

Yeah. I don't know. Things moved quickly, you know, it wasn't like there was a whole lot of thought put into, you know. I mean, my dad wasn't a super wealthy guy by no means. he had a, well, I call it a junkyard, but nowadays they call them salvage arts. In their day, they did okay. They made a little bit of money. And so that money, I mean, he sacrificed a lot.

They didn't do any family trips. You know, it was anything you could take from the junkyard went into that race. So that's what funded your racing all the way up? Yeah, for quite a while. Yeah, that's what the money came from my dad. I didn't have any money. I was a, man, I was a delivery parts. I could call myself a manager, but there was no other people delivering parts but me,

so I was in charge of deliveries. There you go. And there was a point there near the end of that. deal where y'all were running thin. Yeah. What happened is we had a bunch of friends. It was all volunteer help. I worked on a car.

My brother built our motors. And then we end up taking everything we could. Will Cronkite came in a picture to get us organized later on. He was a smart, smart guy during that time period. But, you know, there wasn't a whole lot extra money. I mean, we got at hotels. And I'm talking like it was rough times. I was tickled to death that had the opportunity.

Yeah. But the people before us, the generations before us, roughed it even more. we get to a hotel room. We had a bunch of volunteer help that would show up from all over. We're fortunate about that. But the hotel room, we'd have four or five guys in a hotel room, and we flip a coin to see who got to sleep on the box springs

and who had to sleep on the mattress. We take the beds of it. And you flip a corn and see who got the masters of the box springs. But that's how we went. But we even doing that, you know, ridiculous hours we worked because there wasn't enough of us to go around. What we were able to do great things, but I don't think people realized, you know,

the hardships we had overcome. If we needed a piece of sheet metal, we went out in the backyard, junkyard, and find the biggest Cadillac out there with a good hood on it. It couldn't be good because my dad could sell it. So we had to find what's crumpled a little bit, take the torch out, cut a big piece of square steel out, bring her back in, clean it up with a grinder, and that's how we built race cars back then. Wow. But anyway, that kind of wore thin.

Everybody was physically wore out. They did that for, they did this for a couple years, and they just couldn't, even though we one rookie of the year. I mean, everybody almost needed to be in a rest home somewhere recupering because it just got killed everybody. Right. And nobody wanted to do it anymore. So that's kind of how that came to an end. Yeah. And I mean, you almost, your career almost came to an end. Yeah, real close to coming to an end. You know, technically it basically, it pretty much was ended with a family operation like in 77. We were on the rookie of the year, but we only ran a few races in 78. Right. And in 79, I get a call from Jenny Dunliffy,

out of Richmond said, hey, you're interested in coming to work. Just like that. Yeah, bring yourself. You know, you don't need anything. Just bring yourself. Maybe bring your helmet or a driver suit. And that's kind of how that started. And the hardest thing for me to do was when I went to work with Junie and we go to the racetrack,

first time I came in off the racetrack, I got my driver suit on. Well, I get on a creeper and start going on. You know, changing the gear, whatever we needed to do. And Juni said, oh, hold on there, Bubba. It ain't going to work this way. And you said, you just go over there and sit on the back of that truck and relax. and enjoy this. And you're not going to touch this race car.

Wow. They probably knew how bad a mechanic was, really. So that's why he told me to go over there and sit down. But that's kind of, I learned how to be real lazy after that. I learned how to be a driver then. What was that like driving for Junie Donnelly? Man, just like, what a neat guy. I mean, just full of life experiences and just, he just had a unique way of talking to everybody.

And that was an amazing team for the amount of, they only had a handful of paid guys. But the volunteer guys he had, could have gone in any cup shop and gone to work and been one of the top guys in a cup shop then. But they were volunteer. Most of them worked like they were a machinist from one industry and, you know, shipyard builders. They could do everything. And they were all, most 90% of them were volunteer. So, but Junie was a smooth talker, but he was a good person.

You know, when I came and worked with Junie, I'd only run two or three short tracks in my life. So Junie, I had the fortune of working with Junie, and he's the one that really coached me. and taught me how to drive a short trap. So, you know, it's supposed to be the other way around. I was supposed to be a hired guy to drive his car, but he was a great coach. And I sort of missed that later on, having a coach. I never had anybody could tell me, hey, have you thought about dragging that break a little longer in a corner? Or give it a couple of taps and then let go of it and get the car to rotate?

Junie was full of that because he got through working with Ray Hendricks and Sonny Hutchins and, you know, all the great legend short track racers. My goodness. Did you ever know him? Junie? Well, I mean, I didn't know him, know him. Yeah, he loved him. but I was around.

I've always, you know, in these conversations, Junie's name comes up a good bit, and I only know him just of what I've heard. I mean, and I've never had an opportunity to hear people expand on who Junie Don Levy was, and, you know, what made him so special? What did make him so special? Well, I think, first of all,

he was a great mechanic, knew everything about race cars, but the biggest point about Junie, he was just a great person. You know, you put him in a category of a Bud Moore. I mean, just in a different way. Junie was just really smooth. polished, but you didn't have a contract.

You shook hands on a deal. And he just did what he said he was going to do. And he just had a way with working with anybody's personalities he could adjust and get the best out of everybody and make everybody feel like part of a team. Sounds like a good leader. And the main of his word. Great leader. Yeah, that's the best way to categorize Junie.

You ran 1981 with DiGuard, a pretty awesome race team in its own right. Jake Elder was a crew chief for the first few races. Then he left like he tended to do. So that really would happen with him. He just take off. Yeah. He just not show up. Suitcase J.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I went to work for Dagar, Gatorade, Darrell Walshup had just led. Right. So it was a great honor. What led up to that prior to that,

prior to that got me the job, is we had an old family car, Monte Carlo that we had built at our shop back in Chesapeake. And basically, nobody wanted to, it was a great car. It got built. I think we raced it once or twice.

Hardly ever raced it. Yeah. So that Moni Carler was sitting there, and nobody wanted to go work on race cars. nobody wanted to race anymore. So, Linda, who I've been married to for 39 years, we all grew up together, same high schools, everything, dated through high schools. She packed up, we got married in 79, so she packed up everything.

And we moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. We lived in Canapolis in an apartment building around the main strip in Canapolis. We went there. She got a job selling tickets in a ticket office at Charlotte Motor Speedway. And I had, my sister was married at the town to D.K. Orrick, who had. a shop at Charlotte Motor Speedway. So he said, if you want to come down here, I'll let you have a stall, and you can get your

race car ready to go and come over and run Charlotte. So that's kind of what happened, went down, moved down to Charlotte, temporarily for three, four months, getting ready for that one race, kind of all your eggs in, you know, everything in that one basket. My brother had built an engine for it way back, and it didn't get used, so we took that motor, and went down to Charlotte Motor Speedway, and we tested there, just me, and I think had a couple volunteers helped me get the equipment over into the infield to go, practice. So went over there and it was kind of the week before the big event and we ran good.

We ran maybe, I was about 15th fastest in practice and looking forward to coming back and a guy comes through the garage. I knew who he was. He was a legend. Harry had came up to my car, hung out a little bit. He kind of looked around a race car and it was just me and some volunteers that had to help me. It wasn't many people at the track. So he looks at the car and says, boy, if you want to, he said, I can help you a little bit on his car. I think I see. I see. It's good like it is, but I think I can help you a little bit. And if you're interested, I said, well, heck yeah, I'm beat to death trying to get this thing ready to go. So we took it across the street where Hendricks's shops are today.

And Harry had a, I don't know if it's still there or not. There was one long strip garage over there, long building. So we bring it over there. And so I go to work the next day at Harry's shop. And he's got Jimmy Maycar, who was a young guy at the time. We runs Joe Gibbs racing now. Jimmy Maycar. Randy Dorton was his engine builder at the time.

He went on to be Hendricks's engine builder. So they, Harry and Randy get our motor out of the car and they go to work on it. They put it and take it over the down on. And they start working on that. Me and Jimmy are working on the car. Harry comes by a son. You need to put these lower and blocks you and that'll help you. And it came by and just one thing after the other.

We go back to Charlotte Motor Speedway about a week later and qualify on the outside pole. Yeah. That's the same car. Wow. Same car. And we raced, we probably could have won that race. I got wrecked on like black six. Buddy Baker spins out and I hit him and knocked a fender off our car.

Damn. And we still ran finished third. Wow. But what a, you know, that's really, that was the miracle and the whole thing. That was the moment. To make it all happen. And still owe those guys a ton of favor. My brother's motor, funny story later, my brother shows at a racetrack.

Harry's in the diner room. They're running that motor. And Harry's on top this motor. It's running full blast, you know, at that time, turning about 8,000 RPM. Harry's up there with a flashlight. He's looking down at a carburetor while the thing, he's on the motor watch running. He's looking in a carburetor watching the fuel flow. And he says, so he comes back a little later.

I said I changed some carburetors around. My brother shows up, says, Harry, I understand you've been hanging over that motor looking down in there and stuff watching the fuel flow when that thing was running on with dino. He said, yeah, I have it. We found a little something. We changed the manifold, made it better.

My brother said, you don't, I wish that I'd told you, the crank shaft in that motor's got about 4,000 miles on it. And back then the cranks were a gift for about a race. Right, right. And this crankshed had like 4,000 miles. And Harry said, because Harry used to brag about his bulletproof glass in his dino room. And that got to be a funny deal that Harry don't realize.

sitting on that ticking time bomb looking in that motor with a flash up. That's awesome. Oh, man. So you had a year with Daigard and then that deal went away in a season and you ended up going driving for Richard Childers. Yeah, yeah.

What's your emotions at this particular point? Well, what happened at Diagard? It was a great team wrong timing. I showed up. It wasn't real hard to figure out because after the Charlotte experience, I get a call, two or three calls, but one of them was from Bill Gardner from DiGuard. and what I know if I want to come drive as 88, the Gatorade Car.

I said, well, sure, yeah, I'd like to drive the love to drive that car. Yeah, heck, that's opportunity. I just can't believe. You sure this is really Bill Gardner on the phone, you know, I just didn't believe it. And that's kind of how that thing started. But when the contract showed up, I got it first time I ever seen a racing contract, and it showed up. And I think I was going to drive for 25% of the purse. And it was a 10-year contract.

My God. And, I mean, it was definitely was one side. And I said, man, this thing, this is not right. I said, how about we don't do a contract? No, no, you got to sign this contract. And I debated real hard about it because we had another opportunity shaping up to stay with Harry Had. Hindsight, that had been the thing. But it was, you know, this thing was going to happen with Daegard.

The thing with Harry had depended on what kind of money deal came along. So, so anyway, I took the deal with Daeguard. And it was great until suitcase Jake quit out to the Daytona 500. And then we're sitting there. We got the small cars. They were downsized when there was big old cars down at those little cars. And nobody in racing knew how to work on them at that time. And it was a lot of changes that happened.

So I'm a young driver. I was depending on those log books that Darrell Walter had developed with, you know, the big old birth of the Monte Carlo that was famous for him. And that log book went in a trash can. And here it is, I'm a young driver and good equipment. I didn't know what to do. Be almost like the drivers today. They don't really know much about the cars.

Right. I didn't know much about the technical. side and there wasn't the guy that can straighten out these issues. Anyway, so that we floundered around, won a lot of polls, didn't win a race, finished well, but then that thing came to an end at the end of the year. And then Richard Childress gives me a call. First of all, we had to, Gardner wanted to hold me to a 10-year contract. He was going to farm me out.

Sounds kind of like a roush contract. I don't know. I don't know. It wasn't good. It doesn't. It wasn't good for me, it was all. We wouldn't rocket science to figure out. This is not a good deal for Ricky Rudd. So anyway, I said, I'm leaving.

Sue me, I ain't got anything. Sue me, I'm gone. This isn't for me. This is all about you. So I'm gone. And Richard Childress calls up, says, Ricky, I'm step back. I'm not driving my race car anymore.

Matter of fact, your dad drove for him some six months prior to that. And Richard didn't, his equipment was kind of tired. They didn't have trying to, try to freshen up for your dad. They didn't have time to get it all fresh. They had any money. Richard didn't have any money. That's what he said. So try to get it freshen up.

So anyway, Dale was, his deal blew up. So he goes to drives for Richard. ended the season, my dieguard deal blows up. So Richard doesn't have anything. He did have Greg. Sacks was going to come in and pay him a lot of money to drive his race car. And so Greg was going to be the driver for Richard Childress,

and Greg goes to Daytona testing in the winter about kills himself. It takes a bad hit. And he's in a hospital, yeah, big crash. So then I get a call from Richard, and I'm not quite sure how it came together. Matter of fact, it might have been your dad, might have told me. I don't know if you notice,

we stay at your house on the lake. Yep. way back. You were like seven years old. Yeah, I remember. I got that in my notes. Oh, okay. So you and Earnhardt were friends going way back? We used to be friends. We'll get into all that in a second. But y'all started out of his friends.

Yeah, I mean, Dale, senior, he hit it big. And, you know, people don't realize about Dale. I mean, I worked in the junkyard. Dale, his job, he was inside of gasoline tanker trucks. His day job was he'd get down inside of his gasoline tanker trucks, weld up the cracks, get out, do that all day, get out, and then go work at his ex-fallen-in-law's house, Robert G, work on race cars at night. And that's about the time we got to know each other. We kind of hit it all pretty good. And when we were in town to save the hotel money, we'd go,

we'd stay at Dale's senior's house. We'd stay three weeks at his house while we're racing Wilkesboro, Charlotte, and we'd come hang out. He was nice enough let us stay with him. You remember that? Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever try to talk? Did you, I mean, you were always so quiet. Yeah. You just kind of stayed in the corner and He was always in trouble. Was he? He was always doing, he was, he was always cutting up. Nothing, Bejure.

I mean, he was always like, but that's what you remember. I was a mild annoyance. No, that is a good. I just remember me as a neat little kid. We went out water skiing one time. I think you probably learned how to water ski about that day. I did. But anyway, he was a neat little kids.

I remember Kelly, but I remember Dale Jr. And just thinking, you know, what a neat kid. You know, look what he's turned out to be. You know, shame that happened. But, I mean, he was a neat kid. But, no. So anyway. So the Richard Childers deal, we go to work for Richard.

And again, Richard had a chance to beef up his arsenal of cars and motors during the winter. So 82 comes along and Richard calls, yeah, I'm not doing any, Richard. I love to drive your car. He says, no, Ricky, I've got just enough money. If we go to Dayton and do really good, we might be able to run six more races this year. Oh, my gosh. He said, I've got enough to run six races, but we should be able to run those six races really good. So I show up at Richard.

So Richard's better than anything. I don't have anything else going, so I showed up and get the cars all fitted up and adjusted. And we go to Daytona. I think we sat on the pole that year. Care Yarborough won the pole, turned his car upside down on the second lap. So we were really second fastest we got to start on the pole for the 500. So anyway, and about the time right before the Daytona 500, we get a phone call from Piedmont Airlines. While I was at the shop hanging out, it was, the beginning of the money coming in.

So it just unfolded. It was very nice. I mean, turned out really good. Yeah. You and Richard Goh. You won two races that year? You won Riverside, I believe? We didn't win any of the first year.

We won a lot of pole. We won a bunch of poles. Didn't win any race. So we blew up, like, at a 30 races, we probably blew up 25 of them. A lot. We blew up a lot. But he was still, I'm sure Richard was just putting old pieces together, parts. And he was in debt of different engine guys trying to help them.

And, I mean, cars were fast. They ran good. They blew up. And that was going to be expected. How did you, how did you, manage your expectations and, you know, your attitude. Well, it was that, or I could go back and become, I could take over my delivery job, delivering auto parts around Norfolk.

It's an easy choice. Or I can kind of see where this goes, you know. Did your wife have a hand in trying to keep your minds sane, get you straight? She was always grounded, you know, I was sort of a hot head and just, you know, you know, wanting instant results. And she really kept me grounded and focused, really. I couldn't have done it without her. She was a, she grew up sort of a normal life.

Her dad worked in a at the railroad, North and Southern Railroad, was Brickman on the railroad. And she had, she was really a lot more grounded than I was. And so she helped on that. Yeah, I remember when, I don't remember the staying for weeks and weeks. I know that happened. I don't remember it. But I remember being out on the pier and they'd come riding up.

And she was always incredibly nice. And, you know, him and dad were buddies at that time. And dad was having those lake parties. Yeah, he'd have like a once a year kind of thing where he'd invite his team over and you'd come by and Tim Richmond come over. And I got a picture of me and Tim Richmond in the back of that car that you could drive in the water. Man, that red car and always show up. Yeah, yeah. I don't know who owned it.

There's just a lot you just said there. A picture with Tim Richmond in a car that drove in the water. There's a red little car. Designed of being in the water, I guess. Yeah, you could drive it into water and it turned into a boat for a little, you know, drive around. God Almighty, what kind of G. G. It's still out there.

I think Schrader owns one of them now. I think Schrader. Of course he does. He ended up with that. I have the same car and I'm not. It might be. Yeah. But I got a picture.

Oh, picture's so damn old. Half of it's drawn in. You know, so you go and you race for Richard and then there's a swap. All right. Yeah. You go to Budmore. Dad goes to Richard. Back to Richard.

How did that happen? I'm still trying to figure that one out. Oh, really? Yeah, no. That's kind of when the relationship turns out. Yeah, yeah. You know, see, when we'd come through the neighborhood there, like Charlotte, Wellsport weekend, you know, Dale was, you know, especially when we ran really good with Richard,

well, you know, how do y'all running, how come to cars running so much better? And so, well, we got Kirk Shelburneen is sort of, he's come on board and he's taken a, you know, he's learned a lot. Richard's got this guy, he's got that guy. And I'm, we're best friend. I'm just, you know, spilling my guts, you know. And, you know, they've got this other guys coming in the years out. He's got such and sets coming as, like, lead fabricator.

And then so we're running well This was at the end of 83 Because we had won some races We won on Riverside and Martinsville Yeah So they were staying at still stayed at your dad's place there And so we're talking And I'm sort of spilling my guts, you know

And then 83 is over And all of a sudden find out That Dale is going to come drive for Richard And that kind of hurt You know, that's what kind of bothered me And but you know hindsight Looking back, take all the emotions out of it I mean, I can see why Richard did what he did.

It was just, you know, back then two card teams really didn't exist. But it sort of, you know, it didn't sit well because it was almost like a family saying, hey, we're done with you, kid, you're done. You know, you're out of the door. And that's when it turned bitter. And it wasn't until probably six months where your dad died that we actually kind of buried to axe, you know, whatever. Unreal. I didn't know that. Yeah.

I knew that y'all had, I knew, I didn't know that there was any kind of animosity over the swap. Yeah. Until I did a little research here for the show. Yeah. But I know you were coming around. Y'all were friends. And then it just ended abruptly. Quit.

Yeah. And then y'all almost became, you know, you had a couple run-ins on the racetrack over the years. But it just was, there was no friendship at all. No, it was opposite of that probably. Sure. Both sides. Why Del Earnhardt and not Richard Childress being the one that, you know, you would be more upset with?

Well, I was disappointed with Richard and pissed off that senior was, I'm sitting there spilling my guts about what we got planned, as if I'm, you know, part of the team. Yeah. And I'll say he ends up with it, you know. Oh, so you think he, so he used that information against you. Well, yeah. But, you know, if Richard and Dale were best friends, they hunted together,

I mean, you know, they spent a lot of time in the woods and, you know, things I couldn't control, but, you know, disappointment. It was beyond disappointment. Yeah. And, you know, anyway, so I learned a lesson though. Yeah. And in our generation, after that, I kind of hate it, though, but never got close to any drivers the whole time, kind of isolated myself. And it stuck with me a long time.

And I came from a background of go-cart racing where everybody was best buds. But when you went out on a racetrack, you know, you tried to beat each other. But then race was over your best friends again. So I never really developed that, you know. I mean, it kind of, I was always in the back of my mind. Yeah, you, so let's talk about that. There was the 1988, North Wiltsboro, what was it, 98, there was a dust up with dad. Yeah, what?

Yeah, 89's the one to everybody remembers. I get them confused. What happened in 88? I don't remember that one. I'm trying to remember if there's one came before the other one. Let me see. The 89 is when Jeff Bidam won the race, and you and dad ended up backwards. The one before that, the 88 race, I don't know.

I remember that one well. The one before that was, what's this show rated? Can I, can I? Say whatever you won't say. All right. Well, the race was going on. I was at North Wilkesburg and 88.

I'm pretty sure I was in the green car, the Quaker State car, Merrick McReynolds was crew chief, Bob Riley. I mean, that was a great little team there. But so we're racing at Wilkesburg, and Senior was, you know, he had to deal.

I sort of accused him if he, if he knew who was going to be really strong, that day. He'd take that guy out early if he could. Really? So he didn't have to deal with him. Yeah. So we're running along and I'm doing pretty good and we had a car's doing great and and I come up on Dale. I can't remember who, who came up on who, but anyway, Dale, he just basically spun me, you know, I mean, put his bumper on and spun me, turn me around. And it hit the fence. I almost did. Went up, hit, got gathered back up. Well, then I'm

working like crazy. The whole rest of the race. This is halfway through the race. So I'm working the whole race to catch back up to him. So about still 100 laps ago. I catch him. We get up beside each other. And so I repaid a favor. And he didn't hit anything, spun him around. And then the race is over. Come on, cars, come on down the garage, pulling into the garage area. And Bill France Jr. was waiting at my door in my car when I get out of a race car.

Really? And he's sitting there. The big daddy. He's standing there. He's right there. Him and I went like we had daily conversations. I probably had three in my whole life with him. So he's standing at my car when I go to get out.

and he looks at me, he says, he says, what was that altercation about out there with the three car? What was that all about? I said, well, you saw it. He just took me out. He just spun me out. Oh, no, and I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about

later in the race, you came out and hit him. He says, he said, was, what do you say about that? I said, I'm really disappointed to myself. And he looked at me like, like, really puzzled. He said, you're, he said, yeah, I said, I'm really disappointed.

He looked at me like, that's what I want to hear. Well, and then I came back and said, well, I'm disappointed. I didn't run that something to the wall. You said that? I said that to him. And he kind of like looked at me and kind of smirk walked away. The next morning, that was before email. That was fax machines.

All my fax machine, $10,000. Just like that. Conduct, detrimental to the sport of auto racing. Unreal. That was it. So anyway, that's just a funny little story. Yeah. No, but that's it.

I laugh at it now. I don't think it's funny as hell now, but it wasn't funny that. And in 1989, I was there for this one, boy, this one hurt. You and Dad go down into term one, and honestly,

I'm gonna call it the way I saw. It looked like you and him went for the same space. That was pretty much way. A lot of people say he came down on me, I went up on it. Basically, about a combination of both.

I couldn't have gotten any lower. They used to have a little flat. You could actually use that flat to help get the car to rotate. Yeah. So I waited to the reason I waited to that last lap because I knew he was going to come back and try to wreck me.

Yeah. So I didn't want to put myself, I wanted to do it in a way. And I already made my mind up. I wasn't planning on passing him. I was going to run square to his door. And I was going to run square down the backstreet. I was going to run square in three and four.

You didn't want him to get behind you at all. I didn't want him behind me. So I was going to get down. And then I had more car than he did at that time. Right. So it wasn't going to be a question as long as he was on my outside. So that's why I took the bottom. Yeah.

And I wasn't planned on like doing anything like clear pass. You had to think a step beyond that. Right. So, you know, I hadn't thought it through and figured it all out. What I didn't figure out is that he didn't want to give that space up, you know, and how he got his car to come down as low as he did. And I couldn't go any lower. You know, we got together.

We hit a spun. Yeah. I was more mad that y'all let Jeff win than anything. Yeah, the whole end of that thing. It was one of those deals that, yeah, he wasn't even a fact, you know, was, you know. But our two cars, so your dad never really saw him all day because I had a flat tire I had ever come, something happened. So I was never even in the pitcher

But the whole time You know McReynolds is a crew chief He said you know Sit tight just don't do any stupid We got the best car We got the best car So anyway When I caught your dad

At near the end of the race He you know He didn't expect in it You know He wasn't because he was the dominant car All day And I can't I think it shocked him

But all of a sudden In the last 10 laps He's gonna lose this race He knew it Oh yeah What point of the year was this race And what were the ramifications On the line

That I think that made this thing ratchet it up. Dad and Rusty were in the middle of the points battle, and Rusty and Dad, you know, had had a, I don't know if Rockingham came later, but Rusty and Dad got together, Rockingham, ended up ripping the back of Dad's car off. And just, Dad was so used to winning championships,

and here he was in the thick of a battle with somebody that he felt like that he could beat. And he lost. You know, he lost the title to Rusty that year. And when you lose a title, you look back at days and moments in the year when you think, well, there went 12 points, there went 24 points.

and, you know, so that the Wilkesboro deer was tough. Part of me wishes, I mean, I didn't, you know, you went down in the corner, you didn't go straight up in the side of daddy, but daddy came down a little bit. You know, in my mind, I'm like, ah, you know, if we just could have ran second that day, even though second would have sucked, we wouldn't have went to Victor Lane,

but damn, that was a lot of points we lost that day, and then a couple other events throughout the year. But, so, all right, after that, that was pretty interesting stuff happening in the garage area with conversations and dad. It was nearly a ride. I never come that close to seeing. Were you there?

Were you there? I was there. It was scary. I mean, the fans were on the fence. I mean, they were trying to, you know, what little bit of security they had. It was going to you? Well, half of them were yelling against me and half them were yelling for me. I mean, it was like a mixed crowd.

It was a close thing to a riot. And I know that day, McReynolds, myself, and I don't know if your dad did or not. We got out of the infield. We went to leave. I laid in the bottom of Larry McRill's van with a blanket over me. Really? I just said your dad might have done the same thing.

thing. Wow. I mean, it was, it got nasty. Yeah. So after, you know, so you and dad had, that, that was probably the height of y'all's frustrations with each other, or were there others? That's pretty much it. I think it kind of, I think it was, you know, I look at it, cost me a race, which is, which at that time was as important to me as his championship was. And I looked at him, so he could have given a little bit. I mean, I really, you know, of course, I'm seeing it my way. Sure. But, I mean, I couldn't have gone to the bottom of track anymore.

He had been, it wasn't like we were close. Those cars were on the radial tires at that time. And Goodyear hadn't figured that out exactly on how to get those tires, not to be treacherous, getting into corner. And that's really sort of a... They're still the same. I'm pretty sure the radial was at at that time. I could be wrong.

But it was... It was. It was a tricky time. And Wex bar turn one was not a... We both went in there. I didn't have to go in there hot. I mean, I had it. I got in a car turn.

And if it had been two carlinks later, I'd have had to turn. I wouldn't, my car wouldn't have spun. But anyway, it is what it is, you know? Yeah, you talked, you said a moment ago that you and dad work things out. Yeah. How'd that happen? I can't remember exactly. We end up leaving a racetrack at the same time together.

And as far as when we kind of buried everything, it would have been, whenever the last race at Rockingham was, I don't know what year that was. Some of these stat guys could probably tell us. But we're leaving the racetrack, and we're in streetcars because we don't have far to drive. So we're leaving the racetrack. and we're kind of back and forth into traffic flow and all of a sudden, you know, if somebody's tried to crowd their way in,

it was, and then you let him go, and then, you know, still trying to get out of the infield. So we get out of the infield. And then senior pulls, that was junior beside me, so he pulls up, rolls of winter down.

Hey, what are you doing? I said, we're going to head at home. What are you doing? He said, we're going to go get a bike to you. We're going to go to P.F. change in Charlotte on the way home. You want to stop and go have a dinner with us? Yeah, sure.

Let's do that. So we did. And matter of fact, in that conversation, I had a piece of property. I was getting ready to build a shop on. And your dad said, well, at the dinner, we're sitting there just catching up.

He says, if you need any help, he said, I got a bulldoze, I got a bulldoze and operator. I'll send over there if you need somebody to move from trees and stuff for you. So, I mean, that's kind of how thoughtful he was once you got, you know, if you weren't on the bad side, you know. But, I mean, so you had that whole ride home. I mean, you were leaving Rockingham? So you were going to go drive an hour or so to Charlotte?

And were you thinking, what in the world just happened? Because you guys have been harboring this. Bill Will for a decade. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it was time, you know, and it was good. We had a real good dinner. You know, it was just, you know, it's kind of like, I mean, it almost reminds you have family squabbles.

You know, you get squabble with your brother or sisters. And if you're not careful, you let that go on way too long, you know, and then you, you know, eventually you get older, and you start cleaning stuff up a little bit. So it was kind of more of that type of a situation, I'd say. Yeah. Did you feel good about it? Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, it was, it was, yeah, felt, how do we let that, you know,

fester for so long, you know. Of course, by that time, you'd had bouts with Rusty and everybody else, right? Yeah, but nothing, you know, they were different bouts. They were? Yeah, they were different. How so? Well, you didn't have the personalized feelings involved, you know? Yeah, but you didn't let, because you, because of what happened with Dale back in the 80s, right?

Because you'd say you didn't let anybody get close to anymore. Well, I mean, you know, the deal with Rusty, I mean, he stole two or three races from it, you know, just had a, you know, just being a jerk, really, no more reason from that. You know, we never really ran each other on the racetrack. I mean, had no, like, hey, I got a debt to repay, but a couple of times I had some races won, and he's being lapped. He had a wreck or bad equipment that day, and just would go from the bottom up to the top to turn me around. So, I mean, it's just stupid stuff. Yeah. Rubberhead.

Yeah. No disrespect now. We do talk occasionally now. Did you give him that name? No, I think his dad gave him rubber head. Dad gave him rubber neck, and you altered it. Oh, it was. Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know for sure. Man. But time heals everything. Now we're a bunch of old guys and you look back and laugh at it now. But at that time it seemed pretty serious. Yeah. Did you work out things with Kevin Harvick?

I've not seen him since he was standing on the roof of the roof. No, he wasn't on the roof. No, he wasn't on the roof. He was on the roof. So there was other people. I wasn't concerned about him. It was his big bodybuilding squad of crew guys. Few guys.

In no disrespect. I had the Wood Brothers. Greatest people in the world. Wouldn't harm my flea. And, you know, not real hard. You look at the Woodbrothers. They're 50, 60. And you look over there at the Shielders Cruz.

Shielders crew. And they're all 18, 20, and it looked like they've been eating a ton of steroids. They're all bulked up, you know. And they liked a fight. It wasn't real hard to figure out, you know. Pat Trison came up. He wouldn't let me get out of the car.

Probably saved my life that day, probably. I was trying to get out. They're still feisty. They're still ready to go. So, you know, that. how do you characterize that? You were really emotional, you know, as a driver. I don't really, I never saw that side of you.

You think it was circumstances that just put you in those situations. But you all, you were never scared, I guess, to get out of the car and say what you wanted to say. And if it came down to having to stand up for yourself physically, you did that as well. How do you characterize that? a lot of people say it's just a screw loose somewhere along the way, you know? And maybe you have to agree with them a little bit. Yeah. I remember getting out at Wilkespur, and I can't remember which one of those episodes,

but I remember getting out in the garage area, you know, and people always, they look at me to say, I thought you're a lot bigger than which you are. They say, when you see you in person, I'm 5, 8, 5, 9. Not a real big guy, you know, and, but, you know, I don't know. Something just, you know, clicks, and I knew I had to go see your daddy and talked to them pretty serious. And the children's guys were all huddled around them. Yeah.

And I remember running and jumping up in the crowd, and as I jumped up, McReynolds had me by the waist. Yeah. Pulled me by the waist, pulled me back. Probably saved my life another day. I mean, I was pretty, because I had to go back. Were you ever that way in the way racing go-carts? No, no, not like that.

Go-cart racing was a different, it was, you know. You'd think that would be pretty aggressive stuff. Well, let me say this. I ran lay down go-car racing. And you had to draft. You had to learn how to draft. couldn't be aggressive. But you didn't, you know, the short track guys,

now that was a little different story. And they run like they had fenders on. They were pretty aggressive. I just asked this question. We were talking about this because of the Martinsville post-race incident, you know, yesterday. And I asked the question to Dale. I'm asking you, too, do drivers, when they confront each other after race?

Do they really want to fight, are they expecting their crew members to actually get in there and, you know, keep it from getting, you know, physical? When you went to go talk to Dale Earnhardt, right? I mean, were you ever looking for a fight? I wouldn't say I was looking for a fight. I was looking to get a punch in. I wasn't necessarily looking for a major ordeal. There's times like if I was going to ever get to his daddy,

I got into it with Derek Cote one day. And I wasn't going to, I mean, I was going to go up to talk to Derek. I had no intentions of getting in a fight. I go up to Derek and he needed somebody to talk to him because he really screwed up that day. Yeah. And I walked up to talk to him, and I got real close to him. And he was a, I don't have you ever seen him. used to, he was a semi-pro catcher, big guy, stocky guy, built load the ground, but muscle.

So I go to talk to Derek and just say, Derek, you know, what the heck were you doing? And I get about two foot away from him, and I'm still kind of walking towards him. And as I get closer, Austin, he's drawing back his right hand. I mean, he's got this sucker way back here, and he's ready to unload it. And my instinct, you know, grab him. You know, I got to grab him and not let this thing, let that right hook kill me. So I grabbed him and tacking him. we hit the ground. Now that day I was looking, I'm glad somebody was coming to help because

I end up on, I end up, we know, nobody have to do a punch. She was a wrestling match. You end up falling in the floor. Look like a couple of idiots wrestling around in the garage floor. And then he's broke it up, you know. But I don't know. I mean, I didn't go looking for any trouble. It just seemed to follow me a lot. I don't know, maybe, you know, looking back, maybe I was the problem, I guess. Sure. Well, and that sounds like, I mean, no, I mean, I didn't, yeah. Yeah, I never looked at you that way. I thought you, you would confront. You know, one of the things I was always impressed with you is that you always had a, oh, way, I always thought this was clever. You tell me if I was reading this, right, your play on words,

it's, you know, in the post-race interviews and stuff, it was much like you said, what you said to Bill France. Now, I was disappointed in myself and then dot, dot, dot, because I didn't, you know, wreck him harder or something like that. But I always thought, like, with you and Rusty in particular, you would just, you know, be very political about how you address the situation. And you're like, no, it was just, you know, one of those, you know, we were racing hard for the same position. always thought there was something more to it. I don't know. I know, you had to be careful what you said.

I know that. But you were aware of that. You were cognizant of that. Well, I don't know. I mean, I just drove with emotion, you know, I did better once I got in a race car and I buckled down. And, you know, I tried to be a nice guy and I didn't go look for trouble. But, you know, if you had to, you just had to stand your ground.

Probably no different it is now. I mean, just got to, you can't let everybody run over top of you, but you don't want to go out looking for trouble either. You try to stay off each other. I mean, that's not the intent is to go out. I want to wreck somebody this day. My intent was, I want to get to the Victor Lane. And there are obstacles along the way, and you try to minimize those issues that can keep you out of a potential victory lane on a given day.

And that's just the incidents with other drivers just has to be something you try to work through. Yeah. I think, I always, I mean, I always, I race you a lot, and I never once felt worried that I was going to set you off. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't categorize you as a short few. But, wait, hold on, though. What was he like to race against? I don't know. It was so fast, I didn't see much of them.

Shit. I looked back at a race in Richmond. Somebody sent me a video the other day. I was driving the Texaco car at Richmond. Yeah. And I looked back at it, and we were racing like Kek for the win. It was Harvard, myself. And you were right in the middle of it.

I was right behind you two. Yeah. You were sitting there watching all that. Yeah. You're going to think I'm going to win this raise because these guys. I was hoping. I was going to take each other out. We tried.

That was 2010. I believe, or 2001. And, yeah, you and Harvick traded. Of course, it didn't end bad that one. No, he was congratulating you even after the race. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was really. It was a few years later. It was really heartfelt, you know, I'm sure.

Oh, you didn't. Gotcha. We skipped over something that I know people are going to be upset if I don't ask you about this. But drive up for Budmore, you go to Daytona, 1984, Bush Clash, get turned around off term four. flip terribly down the front straightaway. The pictures and images of that crash and you flipping violently and in the dry, you know, out the wind and it comes down and your helmet's bouncing around in the door, in the door jam.

And you had to, you know, it's famous for the fact that you had to tape your eyes open to be able to run the Daytona 500. Just tell us about that experience. How hurt were you? and, you know, I mean, obviously you turn around and go to Richmond and win the next race. But that sort of set a tone or a reputation of you as a tough race car driver, one willing to do whatever it took. I mean, I remember that pretty vividly, I guess, after, you know, getting turned around. And that's back when the cars were the short wheel-based cars.

And no one really had a handle. That was before the roof flaps on how they, how the roof flaps now. keep them on the ground pretty much. Back in that day, they were doing those reverse flips. It was 200 mile an hour. I think they were unrestricted then. So anyway, the car got airborne. And I remember thinking it did a slow spin and it was headed right for that little

jut out wall that Darrell Walter pit later on that you didn't want to hit there. And anyway, the car ended up going up in the air. I remember it just getting airborne and it changed directions. And one thing I remember is I'm not going to hit that wall. This is going to work out okay. But it was up in the air. It felt like much higher than what. it was after looking at the video. And I really don't remember the ride. I just remember when it

came down, before it came down, I remember thinking, don't get knocked out because this thing, it could knock the fuel cell out of it. And I, you know, don't go to sleep. Yeah. Hard as I was trying to not go to sleep. I went to sleep. I remember hitting the first time. And it's almost like watching NFL game tapes, you know, when you hear when they have those big speakers and you can hear the field, you know, you hear the action actually on the field where they got those satellite dishes listening in. Because I remember hearing myself, when I hit the ground, I heard this big, all the air leave my body. I remember hearing, oh, you know, like somebody just hit me in the stomach.

And I went to sleep. I'm waking up. And they're, you know, I didn't know what was happening at that time. They're working trying to get me to come back to. And I guess I woke up and they're all, you know, they're working, they're, you know, looking at my arms and working on my arms. I'm thinking, man, forget my arms. The rest of me is what's hurting.

My arms are fine. Looking at the video, I see why they're worried about my arms because they were out of the car. They were out of the car. And every time it would roll, I mean, good Lord. had to be there because every time you would roll and it would start to roll over on that roof, my arm was I mean, it was out. It looked like Buddy Baker with his arm all the way out over top of the roof. And it would come down

and I guess in Chesafebago Force would whip it back inside. And they would whip again or go out again. So it looked like my arm was out. Well, you know, look I was going to rip my arm off. Sure. But just very lucky, you know, I mean, I guess as a matter of fact, the seat in that race car is the one your dad was running before. And he used to take like an Conaline van seat and dig all the foam out of the center of it. I don't have you seen them how you did it. But I like

seat in the car. But when I hit, the reason I almost, I almost came out of the window because when I hit, the whole bottom of the seat broke off. So the bottom of the seat hit the floorboard and now you could put two people under the shoulder harnesses. So the only thing was keeping me in the car was a lap belt. Damn. And that's why I moved around so much and I got banged up was because of that. But anyway, it was, that's where my wife Linda came in as far as giving me some, I wouldn't say words, words of encouragement, but we went to the hospital. And I was conscious at that time. I had woken up and I was awake at the rest of the time.

So we go to the hospital. And that night, I'm telling Linda, she's there with me at the bedside. I said, I got to get out of here. I got to go. I got to be at a racetrack tomorrow morning. And after they'd done x-rays and everything, looked at everything, said, you don't look like getting broke. I got a lot of torn cartilage in the rib cage and stuff.

But no serious bones are broke. That's good news. Okay, I'm out of here. and so about that time I tried to get up out of the bed and Linna said you ain't going anywhere I said I mean I'm not feeling good but I got to get out of this bed and a lot of it was I had worked my whole career to get to a place like Budmore

Right established deal You know what wasn't about the money It was just the trials and tribulations to get to that point Where all of a sudden okay now you got a real stable deal You got a chance to do something here First race And get hurt really bad where I look like I'd probably I'd be out for the season anyway.

So I'm in the hospital room and getting ready to get up in Minnesota. I'll tell you what, you're going to spend at least the night. I said, no, I'm not. She says, okay, Mr. Tough guy, get up out of bed and walk over there looking at that mirror and you tell me what you see. So I get out of the bed, go over to the mirror. And this is like two or three hours, four hours after the wreck. I get to the mirror and I'm looking at this person.

I don't know who I'm looking at. It don't even look like me. I mean, and I came back and said, well, maybe I'll spend the night. Anyway, take a look at it. So, and that's kind of. So your eyes swelled up And you had to tape them open Whose idea was that?

Well, I went out on a racetrack We didn't get on the racetrack the next day I was at the racetrack next day But I could not have gotten on a racetrack the next day I would have just physically couldn't do it But it rained out everything that was going on So I knew we had to get a backup car And get out there and get going again

So the next day was a Tuesday So we get up, go to a racetrack Go out on a racetrack And I mean it was a little bit of work To hold it down wide open at that time, 200 mile an hour. They didn't drive that good anyway, and there's spoiler on the back. So I was able to do it.

But I remember I get to the corner and I get going down in a corner, I couldn't see. It was like lights out. I'd see just go black. And I came back in and I told Bud, I said, I got a bad problem. He says, what is? I said, I can't see when I go in a corner. Everything turns out, lights go black. And he looked at me and said, well, man, I don't, he looked at him.

He said, man, your face is really swollen. So I'm not really sure who idea it was. I'd say it's my odd bud would probably say it's his but it's one of those deals it wasn't a lot of thinking we gotta get a next practice session and there's some duct tape laying there so next thing we knew

got somebody there with some scissors cut up some duct tape and just taped the swollen eyes up not too much the eyelids open it's everything above your eyelid pulled it up on my forehead stuck it put the helmet on let's go

it didn't hurt it didn't hurt but it fixed it it did it yeah I could wow and I think I might have drove the race I think I had a little fancier tape, medical tape, sure, but it was still taped open. So your face was so swollen that it basically was hindering, the peripheral vision and everything.

So you basically just pulled it up. Pulled to all the, you couldn't get the swelling to go down. I had ice and everything, but we can go down. So they had to do something to be able to see. My eyes was like a fighter that's just got the crap beat out of them. You know, your eyes are swelled shut. It was no different. Yeah.

And just taped them, you know, taped all that excess skin up, you know. How long did you drive for like that? Like, just that next session? We drove a couple laps, you know, drove the sessions, finished the day out. I think it was just a couple of morning practices, not much. And then it might have been the next time I sat in a race was the Gator A-A-125 races. And I think we, it wasn't great. I mean, I made through it.

I think we finished six or seventh in that one-twenty-five. Whoever it was in front of me, I just followed her bumper. That's all I did. And then you won the next week? We finished. We had to run the 500, too. So then the following week, go to Richmond. And everything's fine.

I got a flat jacket. I think Humpey Wheeler's brother was a trainer at one of the colleges. And he came up with the flat jacket all during the speed weeks, got me over to Mainland High School right next door and used their ice jacuzies and stuff. Got me through the 500. He came up to Richmond, got me through the Richmond race. And we ended up, I mean, everything was pretty normal at Richmond

other than it was a lot of physical pain from my ribs. I bet. It had to hurt, right? Yeah, but the scary thing, thing after that, I think, man, I'm good. I've got, I'm all back. I'm, you know, whatever I was, I'm back. Go to Rockingham the following week, and all of a sudden the lights are out again. Couldn't see anything. Going to corner, couldn't see, and figured out. I end up going to the medical college of Virginia. Best experts in the country on what's going on. I think of what it was now

is just trauma from the concussion. Yeah. And I couldn't, couldn't see. And it was G-force related. When I go into corner at Rocking, he pulled a lot of lateral, vertical and lateral G. And they did all kind of test, and basically they come up with it. It said, you know, it could last a week. It could last three months. It could last the rest of your lifetime. We don't know. And anyway, it ended up going away, ran Rockingham, not doing so well.

And then the next race after that, it was fine. Man. I mean, listen, concussions affected your vision. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Big time. Yeah. I mean, when you look at the pictures of that wreck at Daytona and where his helmet's banging

around in there, you know it was tough on his head. man we got so we're out of time and I hate that. We got so much more. I mean, we'll come. Yeah. So I need you to come back. We'll do it.

If you don't get a bunch of negative feedback about this guy's rammed on. No, we're going to have amazing feedback because you had a lot to talk about and we got on, we got some amazing stories from you, but we only, we didn't even get halfway through. We didn't. Talking about your career. Obviously. we would love to talk to you about you as an owner, beyond that, driving for eights and all those years with the Wood Brothers.

I was honored that you gave us your time. It meant the world to me that you came over here today to talk to us. You know, I raced against you, but you're kind of, you're from my dad's sort of, you know, generation. And I love talking to you guys and asking you all about your careers and how you got started and learning a lot of new things about you. And I know we had to put you on a schedule. the day and you don't like that.

But I really can't thank you enough for coming out here, Ricky. And all the people that are listening to a show want to thank you as well. Well, we appreciate it. Thanks for having us on. And again, it's, wish you'd invite me. Well, I think you did invite me soon. I just finally showed up. But I'm not normally that bad.

Short notice. So if you have somebody canceled, call me. I'll be there. I got to. I got you. Just for the record, when we were trying to track you down, we came up on what I think is no short of seven different phone numbers for you. And we were, hey, we had a game like, which one actually belongs to Ricky?

And we finally made, Mark Martin had a number. The Hall of Fame had a number. Everybody has a different number for you, just so you know. Maybe that's the way you like it. No, actually, it's not by design. No, it's not. Well, the house phone, we turn it off. We get all those damn robocalls.

So we never listen to that. Yeah, so don't listen to that. And I've got the same cell phone I've had probably. I had one when NASA. car gave you the free phone back in a serious sat right yeah had that phone numb forever and it finally went obsolete they wouldn't wouldn't I just went away I guess so I had to go up and buy me a new phone that's been about 10 years ago it's got the same number there you go all right the joke's on everyone else thank you thank you guys thank you guys appreciate it check out dirty moe media

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